Minister, thank you very much.  Well if we look across at the three presentations that have been made, I think we have three broad questions to address during the 40 minutes or so we have for questions.  Juwono Sudarsono emphasised in his remarks the requirement to link-up south east Asia and east Asia in the battle against threats to maritime security and that the military to military links between south-east Asia and east Asia for this purpose had to be improved, so that raises the question of how wide can the cooperation be on maritime security. 

 

Hermogenes Ebdane talked about the importance of pre-emption and prevention in confronting the maritime security threat, the role of the armed forces in the Philippines also to support national development.  He called for joint action to secure the seas, and so that raises the question of how integrated can the cooperation be?

 

Minister Bogollagama from Sri Lanka underscored throughout his talk the naval strength of the Sea Tigers and the increasing threat that they have posed to international shipping, including through the technique of suicide attacks, citing even the need of Indian and more divine forces to confront LTTE naval activity, and that raises the question of how more sophisticated can the piracy threat become.

 

So those are the issues on the agenda for our discussion and I will invite interventions from the floor and I will give some presence to those who in past sessions I have had to skip over for lack of time.   First amongst them, I feel, was Admiral Prakash from India, so please do intervene now.  Thank you.  If you could raise your name plate for a moment.  Thank you very much.  Proceed. 

 

 

Thank you Lord Chipman.  I would like to address my remarks to the Minister of Defence of Indonesia for his consideration. 

 

Sir, you made mention of China, Japan and the pacific command of the US Navy as far as the role in your region is concerned.  You dwelt very briefly on the role of your own country and that also in respect of the Malacca Straits.  Also you confine your remarks largely to East Asia. 

 

Your own country is a huge Archipelagic nation whose dependence on the sea is tremendous.  The sea is a medium of communication, there is much happening in those waters which must be of concern to you.  You have straits and waterways running through the Archipelago and, therefore, you have an obligation to the larger regional land, the international maritime community. 

 

There was a time when you had a very powerful and substantive navy in the 50s and 60s.  There was also a phase when you had so much interest in the oceans around you that there was talk of the ocean being named the Indonesian Ocean.  We have no argument with that.  We did not name it the Indian Ocean. 

 

So what I am coming to is that there are concerns and there is a larger, much larger role that a country like yours has to play.  At the moment my navy and your navy are working together in coordinated patrols because there are areas of concern in south Asia as the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister has brought out. 

 

So may I draw you out into articulating a larger vision, a larger maritime vision for your navy which you must have because your country and mine have a contribution to make in this area.  I think the Sri Lankan minister’s talk was a monumental lesson in the importance of maritime security because he has an island nation which is today in dire straits because, for give me for saying so, but they neglected maritime security because every single bullet, every gun that the LTTE has today has come by sea.  They even have a small so-called air force.  They have got a couple of light aircraft and they must have come by ships and had they been more vigilant at sea or had somebody contributed to their maritime security, the situation would not have arisen today. 

 

So may I have your views on what I have just said, minister?

 

Minister Juwono Sudarsono, you referred to the US as the primary provider of security in Southeast Asia and the sea lines of communication.  The US remains the only major part which has not acceded to the law of the sea convention.  As the Bush administration is recommending to congress early ratification of the convention this year, would you not agree that the message from this meeting should be that there is support by Asian policy makers and analysts for early ratification of the convention and that such ratification is in the US security interest?  Thank you.

 

Last year I had the pleasure of chairing the break-out group on maritime security and with your permission I would like to briefly share with the meeting the four very positive developments which have occurred in the past 12 months. 

 

First, the three lateral states, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, have enhanced their cooperation and coordination in combating Parisian armed attacks at sea.  This they have done both by sea patrol and air patrol. 

I wish also to acknowledge the important contribution that at least one user state, Japan, has made by way of naval assets to one of the lateral states. 

 

Second, the number of incidents of piracy and armed attacks in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore have continued to decline. 

 

Third, the regional agreement known as RECAP has come into force.  This is important because it enables the countries of the region to collate, analyse and share accurate information and it complements the International Maritime Bureau which is an industry run organisation based in Kuala Lumpur. 

 

Finally, the IMO meeting in Kuala Lumpur in September last year arrived at a provisional agreement which would establish for the first time a cooperative mechanism involving the three lateral states, user states and other stake holders in managing the Straits of Malacca and Singapore.  This is in line with article 43 of the UN convention on the law of the sea. 

 

I would like to conclude by making a pitch at our friends here.  There is a very important international treaty known as the 2005 protocol to the 1988 convention for the suppression of unlawful acts against the safety of maritime navigation and I would like to make a plea to our friends from the various countries to consider ratifying this protocol.  Thank you very much.

 

This is for the Philippine Defence Secretary.  He called for regional cooperation and joint action.  The Philippines signed a status of forces agreement just a few days ago with Australia.  What would be the impact of this agreement on maritime security?  Thank you.

 

I would like to address my questions to Professor Juwono.   Firstly, following up on Tommy about the demand by the lateral states for the use of states, for example, to contribute to the maintenance of the security of the sea links of communications, but given the sensitivities of countries like Indonesia, in particular, which you know is extremely nationalistic and is extremely sensitive about the presence of foreign military navies and so on in the region, maybe you can outline to us more clearly the limit of that kind of assistance that user states can give to Indonesia and to the lateral states. 

 

Secondly, maybe you can add to us, is the recent defence agreement between Indonesia and Singapore going to have any significant impact at all on the types of cooperation that will be taken in terms of maritime security here? 

 

Finally, whether the recent peace settlement in Ache has had any contributory impact at all on maritime security.  Thank you.

 

Thank you.  One more before we come back to the panel.  If you could raise your plaque even higher, Michael Yahuda, yes and then Yamaguchi San after that.

 

Thank you very much.  My question is directed to Minister Juwona Sudarsono, and in his presentation he argued very strongly about the new linkages between the countries of north-east Asia and the three trilateral states that are directly involved in security of the Malacca Straits.  Given the general view that since China and Japan are in the sense both cooperate and compete with each other, are there signs of them linking up in the way that you indicated on the general basis, is a sign particularly of them linking up to cooperate on security in the waterways of Southeast Asia, or would you say that there is still evidence of a kind of a rivalry between them?

 

Thank you Mr Chairman.  I was just wondering if any of the panellists could give sort of an idea on the future of management of arms build-up in this region?  Because I am quite interested in the regional corporation for maritime security, not only outside powers, but regional powers that should be more responsible in the future as the other economy is going up.  If we look at this region South China Sea is a sort of inland sea where even a modest size of brown water navies or land-based air asset could provide a lot of assets for the regional security. 

 

So if other nations or Sri Lanka or regional nations could cooperate in building up a sort of harmonised army/navy network in this region for maritime security, it could be good.  It could be the sort of quite new type of arms control on the contrary to the European experience where excessive military power caused the attention in the Southeast Asia, for this region.  The lack of capabilities to deal with risks is a question so harmonised build-up could be the path of result.  So I would like to ask some ideas from the panellists on this issue.  Thank you very much.

 

Thank you very much.  I think we will return to the panel now.  Many of the questions were addressed to Juwono Sudarsono on the Indonesian navy, on the Indonesian/Singapore defence and cooperation agreement, and the like.  We also had questions for the Philippines on your arrangement perspective with Australia and I am sure the foreign minister would like to also address one or two of the questions relating to cooperation which some of the other countries.

 

Thank you John.  On the question posed by Mr Prakash on the capacity of building between the two navies, we look forward to any kind of exercise with any external power to enhance our capability in the area of naval defence.  Our country is too large and too complicated to be effectively policed by our defence and police security forces.  We lose about 20 billion dollars a year from illicit traffic, illicit activities in and around the Archipelagic state of Indonesia.  We have an interest in cooperating with our neighbours, principally with Singapore and Malaysia, to secure the safe passage of maritime traffic in the Malacca Straits because it affects our economy. 

 

We would like to emphasise the need for capacity building.  We have no aims to develop strike force capability beyond our borders because we have enough domestic problems to face principally poverty, unemployment and inequities in development.  So we wish to assure our neighbours in the region that the real need for capacity building in our defence forces is to provide that semblance of governance which is necessary to provide economic development and economic recovery for Indonesia. 

 

The link with the Malacca Straights has to do with oil prices in the Middle East because that affects our financial budget and that affects our defence budget.  Our defence budget is less than 1% of GDP.  Indonesia is now about 400 billion dollars GDP, but we spend less than 3.2 billion dollars a year on our tri-services.  That defence budget is less than the defence budget of Singapore, so the contrast is very stark.  One very large country, 220 million, about 80,000 kilometres and coastline, and Singapore very hot spot, laser-like precision defence, has a defence budget of 4.40 billion.  That is why we have to work with our neighbours to develop a capacity and to fulfil and put substance in the notion of what we call sovereign defence particularly in maritime security. 

 

At the moment I have been encouraging my naval officers to study in Japan, and one of my EDCs has been trained in Japan, he is a lieutenant.  He went on a five-year course in the National Defence Academy in Japan and next September I will be visiting Beijing to try and get more young officers to be trained in China, so that our capacity to develop these linkages at the personal level as well as professional level will be developed. 

 

In addition to links with defence training in Australia, in the UK, in the United States, etc which we have traditionally sent our young officers from all of the services, including from the navy.  So we are doing our job and looking ahead, training young officers, captains and majors to be trained in defence management and defence planning to really learn from Japan, from China, from the United States, from Australia, to develop this capacity to interface among officers, united by profession, to secure the future of sea link communications in that area, in our area. 

 

Barry Desker, I have just learned from you that the United States is considering it.  I think one of the reasons why they did not accept the one clause in 1982 was with regard to seabed mining and the users of the American companies, the objections were related to the provision of the benefits of what we called common heritage for mankind was not in the interest of the American companies.  I do not know what change has happened within the United States business community to allow for some reconsideration of the clause.  I suspect that it has to do with some of the interface between the United States committee and Chinese committee because as I mentioned in my presentation, these two super lenders and super exporters are affecting the double deficits that the United States faces: the trade deficit and the current account deficit. 

 

I think the realisation of the link between economics and security has registered its concern in the business community in the US United States and also in the house of congress, so I think there is a sea change in the mindset of many people within the United States congress, and my guess is this has to do with the economic linkages between the United States’ economy and the rise of Japan and China. 

 

David asked what the United States and the DCA and Ache , I think all of the states that we interact with, principally, our neighbours, and including the United States, realise that the unity and cohesion of Asia is important not only in terms of the strategic waterways across the Straits of Malacca.  Six senators endorsed the unity of Ache province in North Sumatra to Indonesia some four and a half years ago.  That was a signal support, and very important politically for us, but also it showed the strategic interest of all the states, including the United States, in providing the governing of the Malacca Straits in the hands of Jakarta. 

 

We did try to support the peace process on the basis of the strategic dimension, that it was in the interest of all parties using the Straits of Malacca not to have a separate state in the northern tip of Sumatra that would cause tremendous problems would affect the economies of all of East Asia and Southeast Asia because of the dangers to all supplies since 70% of the oil and gas from the gulf area passes through the Straits of Malacca and the Straights of Indonesia.  It is in the interest of all states, including the United States, to provide that agreement. 

 

So my emphasis has always been please give us support in terms of technical capacity for all of the defence forces, army, navy and air force.  What we have done is to try and substantiate the notion of sovereignty in legal formal terms with real and effective capacity to interdict for all the leaders and the surveillance capacity that we work together with all the user states and the lateral states.  What we lack in Indonesia is effective capacity to deploy resources, equipment, ships and men to provide that passage in the interests of Indonesia, in the interests of the little states and in the interest of the states of Northeast Asia. 

 

We would like to appeal to China, Japan and South Korea to provide this technical assistance on an Asian-wide basis as well as a bilateral basis to the little states because as the Chinese have said over the past ten years, their predicament is the Malacca Straight predicament.  So much of their oil, about 50 million barrels a day is required by China to fuel their 10% growth rate for the next couple of years, or all the oil from Africa will have to pass through the Straits of Malacca, the Straits of Indonesia and my colleague, the Defence Minister of India, yesterday called for cooperation with India and Asian, principally for guaranteeing the trade links between India and Southeast Asia.  So we have a tremendous responsibility in Indonesia. 

 

We are linking the – running with obsolete equipment, we are trying to develop a defence industry, cooperating with strategic partners, trying to establish joint production with China, with Korea, some of the countries in the region, would like to assure these countries, including our immediate neighbours, that there is no danger.  Thank you.

 

Ms Vuong, the status of visiting forces agreement between the Philippines and Australia defines the legal status of visiting forces and their proper basing or access agreement, and so far between the two countries allow us for the maturation of the longstanding and close relations between our two countries by defining common areas of interests, counter-terrorism, for and on behalf by the Minister for Defence, and it has to be ratified.  Now we would like to make mention that insofar as the information sharing and the use of advanced facilities and equipment, we have the Cosworth[?] project in the south for which this is patterned on the system that Australia has and in coordination with Malaysia and Indonesia, we can provide better surveillance of that sea, along the boundaries. 

 

I think we need to draw a couple of distinctions in this conversation between the different categories of maritime security that we are talking about, there really is no serious threat to the flow of big tankers through the Straits of Malacca from anyone but another nation state.  These are huge ships.  In normal conditions the pirates that come on them do nothing but go in and try to rob what they can from the crew and get off again.  There is a potential terrorist threat, if a terrorist group were able to get hold of a large tanker right here off of Singapore and drive it into the port or into the refining areas, that would cause a huge destructive problem, but that is different from interrupting the flow of oil to Northeast Asia for which I see there is no really serious threat. 

 

The concerns of the Northeast Asian countries are simply not that serious.  I think the more difficult problem has to do with this set of problems that we talked about, about those who use the sea for illegal purposes running guns, running drugs, running people, stealing fish, exporting illegal logging and so on.  That is the area that we can really cooperate on and we can really make some progress on.  We talked about this mismatch between capacity of countries with huge coastlines like Indonesia and the Philippines and the lack of resources to be able to patrol them.  The question really boils down to intelligence and surveillance cooperation, and that gets into the national sensitivity that Dr Fortuna mentioned. 

 

The way forward really is to develop the joint intelligence cooperation and surveillance cooperation that will enable a selective use of ships and aircraft to intercept them that will eventually drive the outlaws off of the use of maritime forces.  I am not on the inside any more, but my experience is that this is gradually getting better over the years, but it is the area that we really need to emphasise in order to make progress in this area.  I would be interested, both in Minister Sudarsono’s and Minister Ebdane’s estimate off whether they feel that the intelligence exchange among the lateral nations that have to cooperate there is improving so that their limited resources can be used more effectively.

 

Thank you.  I think what I will do is I will bring in Minister Bogollagama first.  You were asked principally about whether you had under‑invested in maritime security and, therefore, invited the special challenge that the Sea Tigers now pose.  I might add to that question the further question about how much the Sea Tigers are actually indirectly affecting the potential growth of the Sri Lankan economy.  It is known that the claims for Tamil Eelam cover much of the coast of Sri Lanka, and particularly that part of the coast of Sri Lanka offshore of which a great deal of oil is expected to be explored should the security situation allow and a number of international companies, whether it’s Chevron or Indian companies are deterred from exploring oil off what they style Tamil Eelam because of the increased proficiency of the Sea Tigers in causing problems.  So you might add a few comments on that and I will return to the Philippines and Indonesia to answer this question of intelligence sharing.

 

Thank you Chairman.  In fact, I am glad that I could respond to some of the very pertinent applications in the context of Sri Lanka’s perspective.

 

How we have been looking at the intelligence aspect in terms of the need for us to cooperate with other countries in sharing that.  We are today structured in several bilateral agreements and seeking the international cooperation in intelligence sharing because the LTTE in Sri Lanka they do manufacture arms.  What comes into Sri Lanka, as correctly stated earlier from an individual from this audience, is all coming from overseas locations.  How have they been able to bring this to Sri Lanka?  They pass through several ports. 

 

There are loading ports, discharging ports and transiting ports.  There are some parts come in containers getting loaded or in great bulk vessels.  In midstream there are so many transiting points through which they get transit, so this chain has to be arrested and to us which we need international bilateral cooperation with other countries.  We are today structuring several measures in that direction.  We cited this issue before this conference concluded only in March, in Delhi in India.  There is a comprehensive terrorism combating resolution amongst the nations today, in all its manifestations to direct all our efforts towards intelligence sharing in the combating of terrorism. 

 

We are also working with the Indian authorities.  Where the Palk Strait is concerned between India and Sri Lanka there are several instances and incidents that takes place on a routine basis.  LTTE, targeting the Indian fishermen, and also preventing any other fishing activities because they fear the LTTE movement in relation to the arms smuggling is getting affected with the presence of the navies from both countries.  Therefore, we have now structured and proposed a coordinated patrolling arrangement in the Palk Strait state between India and Sri Lanka. 

 

We are also seeking the regional cooperation, particularly from India, in the other areas of service through their satellites and the radars that can be more or less for this objective. 

 

We also need oral intelligence share for which we are now working with the other Governments both in the eastern region and that of the western region.  From the west we shine intelligence, we want intelligence cooperation to know the fund-raising arrangements of LTTE through their front organisation.  I must appreciate the efforts of the United States of America, that of Canada, that of France and the EU and the United Kingdom in this direction.  Several areas are now taking place in Baltimore, in New York and also in Paris.  Recent research has been made in terms of fund-raising operations by the LTTE. 

 

That is, again, cooperation that we have got.  Then these funds getting transferred to banks in the eastern region of the world, and from there they go to the arms procurement, and also on the narcotic straights, we need intelligence sharing, how these things are moving because today 50% of the youth population in the Maldives are affected with the drug menace and drugs have moved through this terrorist organisation through their capability to navigate through the waters in the region. 

 

So the threat that has come is not confined to Sri Lanka alone.  The threat in terms of the economies of our countries and that of the world is getting threatened and that is what we want, international cooperation in arresting that.  Also, a particular indication that has been addressed to me by the chair that how much it has affected Sri Lanka subsequently because Tigers claim certain sections of the seafront associated with the land.  We deny that there is any claim on that, but at the same time they are holding on to two and a half districts of the country today.  The east we have been able to liberate totally from the Tiger control and two and a half districts in the north, covering both the east coast and that on the west coast do affect our economy pursuits. 

 

Today we are about to announce the licences for the oil exploration, all the eight blocks have been carved out in the Calvary Bay on the West Coast of the Sri Lanka, on the north-west coast of Sri Lanka,  and that has an implication.  We do not have safe passage and safe seas surrounding us.  That affects the exploratory operations by other foreign bidders and foreign takers.  So we want peace and both peace at water as well as on land, and to as which we need cooperation.  Only two blocks have been given, one to China, and the other one to India.  So we want these governments to move in fast and take control of this location and start off with the operations because we need that for our economy. 

 

These are new areas of economy.  Our tourism, yes, has got affected because of terrorism, but we have been able to manage it.  We still sustain the normal arrival rates for Sri Lanka, but our GDP is great, 7.3% in 2006.  Our exports have grown because we have remained resilient to all of the internal shocks, both internal as well as external in today’s context.  But we have been managing the economy but we can do better in the absence of this menace affecting Sri Lanka.  I think the 30 years have taken a long toll, but at the same time 30 years of this menace has taught us several lessons.  One is to call terrorists ‘terrorists’ and meet that challenge, at the same time have a political process and a greater dialogue through a democratic agenda.  That is how we approach it.  Sri Lanka, both politically, economically and from a military context.  Thank you.

 

Then if each of you could just take 30 seconds to address this question of how you see the quality of intelligence showing on this issue, minister.

 

There is an existing intellects program among the intelligence chiefs and not only that, in matters of extreme necessity.  The ships of our navies are in contact, they can just lift the telephone and what we do not see is the coordination among the different ships of the national police of the ASEAN nations that provide additional information especially the information that relates to terrorism and other related intelligence.

 

The biggest problem is sharing human intelligence, but societies of each of the Asian countries, we lack knowledge about the internal dynamics of the Philippines, Cambodia, I think they’re working now at that level.  I think military and electronic intelligence is fine, but I believe there is much more need for importance in understanding human intelligence, what makes a society tick, what makes people at a certain level in society lead to desperation and lead to violent acts of terror.  We all agree on three principle reasons for terrorism. 

One is inequities in development, second is corruption with leaders in both Government and business, and third is poverty.  If we can get an understanding of resource societies about human intelligence, I think we will do much better in the long run.  Thank you.

 

Minister, thank you very much.  On behalf of all the delegates here, can I thank the three ministers for their excellent statements and the discussion also that followed.  I think again we have achieved at the Shangri-La Dialogue a better understanding at least of the widening challenges at maritime security, but also the specific steps that can be taken to meet them.  Thank you very much indeed.